the way it all melted (as ice melts)
by TolkienGirl
Summary: In which the Winchesters hunt Grendel, and Sam's life begins to take him away. January 2001. (No slash, some background het pairings, language/violence/some suggestive content.)
1. Chapter 1

_It was but little while ago that I hoped never in all my life to find healing of any of my woes, when this best of houses stood stained with blood and dripping with fresh gore: that was a grief far-reaching to every one of my counsellors, who hoped not that they ever in the world should defend this stronghold of the people of the land from the malice of demons and of devils. Now hath one young man through the might of the Lord wrought a deed that we none of us with our wisdom were able to compass._

"This was a stupid idea."

"Shut up, Linds. I think they were trying to be romantic."

"Little chilly for that, yeah?"

The figures down by the pond shore hollered, waving their arms in something that looked a little primal against the flames of the campfire. Beyond, the virgin snow whispered across ice, frozen since early December.

Reluctantly, Lindsay picked her way down to the edge. She was less reluctant when Drew's mittened hands folded over her chilled fingers. "We brought beer," he murmured, against her ear. "C'mon. It'll be fun."

They hadn't planned for skating. Hadn't even brought their skates. But Shelly said hey, the snow was thin. They could still slide.

So they did, skimming through the shimmering powder, fingers and boots grasping for purchase against the uniformity of ice.

Lindsay started singing, chanting some too-late-in-January caroling nonsense. Chestnuts and open fires. She couldn't remember most of it. But Drew laughed and Shelley joined in, and even Jake started howling in a godawful baritone.

It was perfect and surreal, a little desperate because of the way the cold air pricked at her throat and lungs. Lindsay felt alive. She felt something.

She felt the ice give way under feet.

Shelley screamed, and Drew was running and then stopping, eyes wild, rocking at the edge. He didn't want to make it worse. Her coat and mittens were sodden, sinking. She choked, flailing.

The grip came from below, pulling her down, and drowning passed quickly for a mouth wide in terror.

The last thing she would have remembered, had she lived, was that the hands that wrapped around her waist were large enough to go all the way around.

...

"It," says Sam, "is fu-reaking cold." He changes tactics at the last moment, deciding that Dad looks low-to-medium pissed from driving thirteen hours and swearing will push him towards _medium_ sooner than Sam wants to. Sam has his strategies.

It's frustrating that he has to hold it back like some grandma, though, because Dean is twenty-two in a few days, Sam's going on eighteen, and seriously? When will Dad stop spitting out, _language, son_ , as though he himself doesn't run up blue streaks every single day?

There are always inconsistencies with Dad's philosophies—he is not, Sam thinks bitterly, a complete theorist—but when Sam has goals in mind he diverts his stubbornness to another day and waits it out. Crafty son-of-a-gun, as Bobby has called him before with fondness. Little weasel, as Dean has called him, also with fondness. Although, they must both acknowledge, not so little anymore.

Sam stands six-foot-three in his socks, now.

"It's upstate New York," Dean says, pretending like his teeth aren't chattering. It's not like they have more than one real winter coat to go around, pretty much ever—Winchesters are all about layers—but Dean takes that a step further and never bothers with gloves and hats. It turns the tips of his ears pink and Sam wonders how he's not sick all the time.

It must simply be another of Dean's unrealistic talents. Sam rolls his eyes privately.

Dad, as usual, only pays attention to their conversation when he's giving an order. Right now, it's to grind the Impala's wheels to a halt over snow-dusted gravel and say, "Unload the car, boys. I'm going to check out a few local leads."

No comment on the cold. No concern for whether the one-story dump he's dropping them at is even heated. It's goddamn January. Sam jams his hands, insufficiently warmed by threadbare gloves, into his pockets and remembers that he has a goal in mind. _First things first: don't piss off dad._

They pull the duffels and a few of the gun cases out and head inside the dump. Sam wrinkles his nose. It smells a bit like cat-piss and a lot like dust. There's a bit of furniture; laminated fifties-era table with a splitting metal rim; dingy cupboards; a swayback couch.

"Spacious." Dean lifts an eyebrow. He's still on the right side of a good mood, eyes sparkling from the last town's memories, a mouth-shaped bruise marked proudly purple where his throat meets his jaw.

Sam hates him for a minute, then decides it's not worth it.

"Yeah. Drafty's more like it."

There's two bedrooms. One has bunkbeds, one's got a queen frame. Sam takes in the bathroom, little more than a broom closet, and wonders if he's ever going to find a place where the walls are pale and clean from floor to ceiling. Where's there no cobwebs and secrets hiding in every corner.

Sam imagines a dorm room. Doesn't care how small it is. He shrugs away the thought quickly, a secret in itself, when he realizes Dean's watching.

"So." Dean's voice is mild. If Sam has his own goals, Dean does too. For all his many expressions, Dean can be hard to read when he wants to be. "Fly Creek, huh?"

"Probably named for a biblical plague," Sam suggests darkly. He likes to take off his jacket and hat when he's indoors, but it's still frigid.

"Dude," Dean says, face lighting up. "Did you see how many ponds there are around here? We've got to get ourselves some skates."

"Is this about your Michelle Kwan fascination?" Sam snarks.

Dean scoffs. "Dude, if you want to insult my masculinity, don't be such a girl about it. I didn't mean figure skates, Samantha. Hockey skates are where it's at."

Sam does not even know why Dean knows this. "Great idea, Dean. Did you suddenly forget what Dad said? People getting dragged under the ice by something? Maybe not the time for pirouetting?"

"What's wrong with a little danger?" Dean shrugs off his jacket like it wasn't twenty-two degrees in here, too. "Lighten up, Sammy. New semester. Fresh start." He busies himself with putting away what food supplies they have in a refrigerator that looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the Great Depression. Sam shudders.

"I liked Michigan," he says, sourly. Like it wasn't equally cold in Michigan.

"You liked Alison."

Screw Dean. "Screw you, Dean."

"Screw you, Sammy." Just for reciprocity's sake. Then—"I didn't mean—I get it. She was cute."

She had been more than cute. She was—Sam remembers Christmas, her cool fingers tangling in the curls at his neck. She'd had red hair and soft brown eyes, and she was smart, wanted to be a history teacher—

Screw Dad. Screw the job. Screw people getting dragged under thin ice.

Sam scowls, more for his own benefit than Dean's. He's being pissy, and kind of a little bitch, and he knows it. He's got to keep it together. _Goals._

"So what do you say?" Dean isn't done with his grand plan. "This thing only attacks at night, and its radius is limited. We need some hockey skates. How else are we supposed to hunt it?"

"OK," Sam concedes. It's a far, far better prospect than their typical training. "As long as we pick somewhere safe to practice."

"Yeah. Sure." Dean winks. "Got to make Michelle Kwan proud."

...

Fly Creek is a tiny patchwork of crossing streets. Then it's just farms, and patches of trees, and low rolling hills that don't belong to Fly Creek at all, or, Sam thinks, to anyone really. Every piece of countryside he's ever seen is a little different. All a little wild.

He feels a tug inside him, thinks of Stanford and Brown and Harvard and _damnit, damnit, how long do acceptance letters take_? Thinks how Dean is happy in this dead-end life, or at least is good at pretending. But Sam—he's just done. He wants to see the country on his own terms. He feels too old for this family and too young to let his brother go.

"Sam." Dean is snapping his fingers in front of him. "Seriously. Do all your brain cells get eaten up by producing that hair?"

"If that's so," Sam retorts, "Not sure what your excuse is."

Dean flips him off, but they keep going, poking around the little shops and cafes. Finally, Dean finds what he's looking for.

"Thrift store?" Sam asks, a little incredulous. They hit up thrift stores every few months, for more flannels and jeans and t-shirts and the occasional dress shirt. The shoe assortment is always limited, especially for boys who have size thirteen feet. Sam would know.

"Trust me," Dean says, undercutting any possible credibility in those words as he pauses to fix his gaze on a girl on the other side of the street. She sees him looking and swings her hips a bit.

Sam stomps on Dean's foot.

"Ow, jackass," Dean says. He's wearing steel-toe boots so the complaint is more for effect than anything else. "C'mon."

Dean, as much Sam hates to admit it, is right. There are two dozen pairs of skates, jumbled together with tangled laces. Dean dives in, examining with a seemingly expert eye.

"When did you learn about hockey?"

"I don't care crap-all about hockey," Dean says. "But skating. Kind of cool, you know." His face is splitting into that little-kid grin, the one that Sam's know forever, the one that frustrates him sometimes in how simple the things are in which Dean finds contentment. "We'll be flying, Sammy."

"It. Is. Sam." It's hard to be mature and almost eighteen when your brother is Dean Winchester. Sam schools his features into vague boredom and kicks at the box of skates. "Found a size thirteen yet?"

"Here."

"OK." Sam's mildly impressed. The men of Fly Creek have big feet. It's better than nothing. He tugs off his sneakers, which are slushy and cold, and tries the skates. They fit.

"Dude," Dean says. "We're going to freaking _fly_."


	2. Chapter 2

Sam is starting to look too old, even with a pair of skates slung over his shoulder like a freaking kid from somewhere Nordic. He's got a pinched, serious look from too much thinking. Dean wants to shake him, tell him to have some fun, you've got to make the most of the spaces in between, make them count for something.

But Sam has always had his eyes set on mountains, not on the path in front of his feet.

Dean sighs, and covers it with a cough. He's not an idiot; they're not going to go skating somewhere where the under-ice-monster can be a goddamn literal ankle-biter. But it's been a wet year in the Northeast. Dean follows his own intuitive senses to an abandoned parking lot at the joint of a shut-down auto repair place and one of the ubiquitous general stores and grins at what he sees.

"Whoa." Sam, for all his latter-day teenage cynicism, is occasional able to be wowed. The whole parking lot is covered with two inches of ice. It's been blocked off with a warning sign about slippery surfaces that neither of them care to look twice at.

"Ready?" Dean asks. For a second, he almost holds out his hand, like Sam's five again, not seventeen, and needs to be steadied by his brother. Dean misses those days, sometimes, and it's lonely because he knows he's the only one who does.

"Yeah." Sam's crouched over on the ground, trying not to sit on the wet snow, futzing with the laces on the skates. He wobbles to his feet at last, an additional three inches added to his already towering height.

"God." Dean shakes his head. "You're like a freaking giraffe."

"Screw you," Sam returns, shaking his bangs out of his eyes and tugging his hat down. Then he sets off.

He falls three feet in, and Dean laughs and laughs but he helps him up, even though Sam's not five anymore.

"I think we need to shovel it off."

Sam massages his lower back with one hand. "No kidding."

They find an old snow shovel—steal it, technically, but Dean is never technical about such things—and scrape a forty-foot square.

Dean can't remember the last time he skated. It's been a long time, and Sam has maybe only done this once, but Winchesters are nothing if not balanced. After a few spills on both sides, whereupon they ceaselessly mock each other, Dean thinks they're both getting a hang of it.

"Not bad, huh?" he asks, skimming backwards past Sam. Sam's perpetual bitchface has cleared a little, and that always makes Dean smile.

"It's kind of awesome," Sam concedes. He's actually less clumsy than usual, because shifting across the frozen gloss in long, slicing strides is well-suited to his lanky limbs. "Thanks, Dean."

It's twenty-five degrees, but Dean feels suddenly warm.

...

"The hell were you two doing all afternoon?" Dad asks.

Dean hopes that Sam will not let the proffered match scratch him into flame, and hastens to say, "Training."

Dad has not failed to notice the skates. He lifts an eyebrow, slowly and gradually, while Dean forces himself to stand his ground.

"Is this what we're calling training these days?"

Dean tries for the very beginnings of a smile, respectful, but also not admitting to wrongdoing when there still might be another way to work this out. "Uh…new strategy, Dad. This monster's under ice, right? We're not going to be able to _run_ away very easily. And don't worry. We stuck to flooded parking lots. Not much of a hiding place."

There's a loaded pause. Thankfully, Sam is still keeping his mouth shut. That in itself, though momentarily welcome, is curious, and Dean will have to investigate later whether Sam has been replaced with a doppelganger or something. But then the Dad breaks the silence with a chuckle.

"Smartass," he says, but not without affection. "Alright. Don't think this gets you two out of your usual reps, or studying the lore."

"Yessir," Dean says, and nudges Sam with his elbow.

"Yessir," Sam echoes.

"Stop dripping on the floor," Dad admonishes. Sam starts to open his mouth at that, probably to protest that the floor is already filthy, but Dean pulls on his sleeve, not wanting the good mood ruined.

They put the skates under their beds. Sam surveys the bunks with a frown. "These are going to break."

"Then take the top one, beanpole."

"I'm not a beanpole," Sam retorts, indignant, but he pulls himself up to his full height when he says it, and that makes Dean laugh.

"OK. More like one of the stringbeans themselves, then."

Sam takes a lazy swipe at him and Dean ducks easily. "You all set for school tomorrow?" School is always a good topic for Sam.

But Sam looks momentarily grave, too old again, and then he just hunches his eyebrows together in a typical scowl. "Aside from all the paperwork I'll have to fill out and hand in and bring home to Dad for him to fill out and also the fact that they're probably still on the Crusades in AP European History? It's gonna be freaking amazing. Sure."

"Shut up," Dean says, flopping experimentally onto the lower bunk It releases a cloud of dust, and he chokes on it. They're going to have to take these mattresses outside and beat them, hoping the mildew isn't too overpowering. "You love school."

"I could, if I was allowed to." There's a darkness in Sam's face that's been settling there lately. He must see how Dean's looking at him because he clears it away suddenly and looks almost innocent. "Wow, dude. Should we do something about those mattresses?"

...

Dad makes them clean the guns before dinner, but Sam doesn't complain too much so they end up playing Screw-Marry-Kill with various monsters, in an undertone so Dad can't hear them. Of course, Dad can hear them anyway, and says, "Why the hell would you want to marry a Kelpie, Sam?"

"It would be platonic," Sam argues, and Dean snorts with laughter. "And faced with a black dog and a werewolf as the other options? Kill the black dog, and hey. At least the werewolf's human some of the time."

"You boys," Dad says, shaking his head. But he's smirking as he tips back his beer, and so Dean telegraphs his own amusement to Sam by a waggle of his eyebrows.

"Hey, dad," Dean says, when they've finished and the rags are soaking. "Mind if we go out again? More…training?"

"Take your knife," Dad says. "And stick to that parking lot you mentioned."

Dean nods quickly and he's gratified that Sam also shoots up like a rocket, obviously eager to get back out there.

There's not many street lights in Fly Creek, and dark comes early in January. There's no one to interfere with their skating rink, but they take the long way there anywhere, around the edge of an evergreen stand that stretches like a parade of fragrant, shivering towers against the smoky gray-black sky.

"They look kind of like redwoods," Sam observes. "Only about half as tall."

"Damn," Dean says. "I miss California."

Sam's voice sounds a little tight, but Dean chalks it up to the cold. "Yeah. It's a great state."

If Dean had a girl to charm with words, he'd say skating at night was pretty mystical. There is little sound except for wind rustling fallen snowflakes and the faint whir of their blades chipping minuscule fractals into the ice. Dean finds himself wishing that they could always move this quickly, this easily, even if it brings a greater danger of falling.

"Sam," he calls out, to where Sam is tracing backwards figure eights some yards away, "We should spar."

Sam doesn't answer in words. He just breaks out of his pattern and charges, knife-like strokes encroaching at increasing speed. Dean waits for him and then veers sideways, but Sam must have marked some tell because he veers with him, pushing Dean backwards so that they both go down.

Dean's up first, and he uses the momentum of Sam's swinging arm to send him spinning off on his back.

"This is all great," Dean observes, while Sam groans and gets up. "Except when the ice is breaking."

"Yeah," says Sam. "More of a getaway plan than an attack." He brushes snow off his jeans. "Except…hey. Maybe we should get hockey sticks and weaponize them."

"You are such a nerd."

"No, it would work! I mean, maybe. Depending on the monster. But I think we need something to help us with balance, something to put distance between us and it. Going under the water is not going to end well."

Dean contemplates this, skating around the perimeter. "Yeah. Maybe. We'll have to run it by Dad. And you, geekboy, will have to hit the books and figure out what the hell this even is."

Sam lunges, but Dean is too fast for him. They chase each other for a while and then collapse on the slick, cold surface, laughing.

The stars are starting to shimmer above them.

...

"Welcome to the first annual cantata-on-ice!" Beth chirped. The bullhorn was a little unwieldy and squawky, but it was starting to get breezy so she wanted to make sure she was heard. "We're going to sing a few carols—and I know, I know, Christmas is past so there'll be just some winter songs, too—and then you're welcome to join us for a little night-time skating!"

There were only about twenty people on shore; not the turn-out she'd been hoping for. "Is it safe?" one voice shouted out. "Pond across the street, broke through t'other day. Girl drowned."

"Somethin' pulled her down," a teenager muttered.

Beth shook her head firmly. "We tested the ice this morning," she assured them. "And there's nothing pulling people down. Of course we're sorry for her family's loss." She glanced around at the other cantata members, shivering a bit in their red velour robes and white skates. "Everyone ready?"

They started singing. Jingle Bells, first, to warm things up. The audience wasn't especially excited, but a few started singing along. As long as someone got some good pictures, Beth thought, maybe her pastor would be interested in planning this event earlier last year. At least the plastic lanterns on the shore made for a pretty evening picture.

The ice underneath her feet cracked _upwards_ , as though it had been punched.

The audience started to scream.


	3. Chapter 3

Dad shakes them awake far too early next morning, for Sam's taste. He'd set his alarm in time to go to school, but Dad's in their room an hour earlier.

Dean groans something into his pillow and doesn't budge for a whole thirty seconds. Sam sits up, whacks his head on the low ceiling, and says, " _Jesus_."

"Sam."

"What…sir?" The last added on because Sam has a thing going, a plan, those pesky goals he needs to take care of and Dad cannot be pissed off at him more than strictly necessary.

"Make your brother get up. We have some things to discuss."

Sam kicks in the general direction of Dean's head, from his perch on the edge of the bunk. "Dean."

Dean rolls out of bed, blankets and all. Sam doesn't envy him the dirt on the floor. "Dammit," he says. "How early is it?"

"Like five thirty or something."

"Screw that," says Dean, but he picks himself up out of the blankets and runs his hand through his hair, standing it all on end. Sam grimaces at the room, at the cold that dances along his skin, at the water stains in the ceiling. He misses the cleanness of the ice last night, his ribs aching with laughter, the wind fraying around him.

"Where the hell are my socks?"

"No idea." Sam runs his fingers through his hair, grabs his nicest jeans, a henley. He doesn't want to think about school, because he isn't over the last one. (He never is.) Maybe it's better to focus on the fact that this could be the last, or next-to-last school, he ever has to worry about.

But there are things about it that just… _suck_. Like how maybe Sam could have had a chance at being valedictorian, somewhere, if they ever stuck around long enough for him to earn the credits. Or how his graduation will be an anonymous, uncelebrated affair by and large—how it will be a miracle if Dad even comes.

 _Maybe_ , Sam thinks, with sudden, quiet viciousness. _Maybe I don't want him to._

"Boys!"

"Coming!" Dean answers, finding the socks. In a few minutes they're slurping milk and cereal. The milk has ice crystals in it. Sam is not amused.

"There was another killing last night," Dad announces. "Heard some noise about it on the scanner after midnight." He scrubs a hand over his face. The dark stubble and settled lines make him look even more tired than usual. "Some kind of choir on ice gig. Three people unrecovered. Witnesses say something was grabbing."

"Just another reason not to join a choir," Dean says. He looks to Sam for a smile or something, but Sam's preoccupied.

"Have you gotten a chance to talk to the teenagers yet?"

"Since we got here yesterday?" Dad lifts an eyebrow, and Sam can't help bristling, just a little. "No. Going to today. Dean can come with me. You need to get to school."

"I don't have school for another hour," Sam points out.

"Huh." Dad drains his coffee. "I must have read the clock wrong."

That's it. It's a little thing, losing a bit of sleep, but it's just the sort of thing that makes Sam endlessly resentful. He chews on his irritation, sees that Dean is a little tense, waiting to see what Sam will do. "I'm going for a walk," Sam says.

Dad is already focused in on yesterday's paper. There are some things, Sam thinks, that Dad just doesn't notice.

He should probably be grateful for that.

...

Sam isn't five minutes down the road until Dean catches up. "You pissed?"

"No more than usual," Sam answers. He kind of wanted to be alone, but you can't explain that to Dean.

"Dad and I are going to scout out everything today. You can join in for the ganking, skates and all."

"Yeah." The cars whistle by them. The gradation of snow and gravel is beige and white and gray, soaking into the edges of Sam's sneakers. They're a little outside of the hamlet or the village or whatever Fly Creek is lucky enough to be, and their only company at the moment are the birds on the telephone wires, hung like black beads along a looping necklace.

Dean clears his throat. "You excited about school?"

Sam rolls his eyes. His forced patience with Dad makes him more irritable with his brother. It's a balancing act, always, and Dean is ever too ready to break the family falls. "I'm thrilled, Dean. It's my fifteenth school in four years."

"Breakin' some kind of record."

"Not the kind I want to," Sam retorts, darkly, dangerously close to spilling out the secret, and he holds himself back at the last moment, squinting against the salty-slushy spray of a dump truck roaring by like some unholy beast.

"It's kind of nice here," Dean says, a curious non sequiter to the dingy highway. But Sam in a better mood could guess what he means. The countryside is beautiful, even if the town is little more than a dust mote and evil lurks in darker waters. "Right next to the Baseball Hall of Fame, too. We should go check that out."

"Hmm."

"What's up with you? You said you were fine."

"I'm freaking tired, and you're trailing me around like a dog," Sam snaps. He regrets it instantly.

Dean doesn't miss a step, but he misses a beat. Sam sees the flinch in his brother's eyes, and he hates himself, always splitting the knuckles of his cornered rage against Dean, just because Dean is an unshakable constant. It's the furthest thing from fair, and it's more like their father than Sam cares to be.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he mumbles.

"Yeah, you did," says Dean, and he just sounds exhausted.

"No, I—"

"Give it a rest, Sam. I'll leave you to your precious walk." Dean turns on his heel and Sam knows better than to follow him.

...

School sucks. Maybe it's senioritis, refried and microwaved by school fifteen. Maybe it's Sam's own discomfort, torn between his plans and the way he left things with Dean this morning. Maybe it's—

His cellphone goes off during the lunch hour. He picks up.

"Pastor Jim?"

"Sam, is that you?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Did—uh, did anything come?"

"You in a safe spot to talk?"

"I'm at school." But all the same, Sam glances around him, just making sure that there's no John Winchester in the near vicinity.

"Big envelope came today. Stanford. You want me to open it?"

Sam feels like his insides are folding up. "Uh. Yes. Please."

Pastor Jim's voice is warm with feeling. "Dear Sam, on behalf of the faculty and administration, congratulations! We are excited to offer you a place in the class of 2005. On account of your outstanding application materials and personal statement, we are also offering you a full tuition scholarship—"

It's then that Sam realizes that he's crying. Like a big, six-foot-three-inch girl, standing in a high-school hallway, with tears running down his face.

...

"Hey bitch, grab me the Doritos," is the first thing Dean says to him when he gets home, which Sam figures is equal to _all is forgiven._

Only problem is, Sam's still shaking, even though his tears are long since wiped away. He's got to tamp it down, keep it inside, _hide, hide_ from Dad and Dean. There is no place here for pride in the things Sam wants to be.

"We checked out the ponds," Dad says, by way of greeting. "Wet year, so there's a lot of points of connection—frozen over, which means this thing can't only move by swimming." He glances at Sam's textbooks. "You got a good library at the school? In town?"

"I'm sure there's one in Cooperstown," says Sam. "James Fenimore Cooper? Kind of a draw for academia." He tries to keep the condescension out of his tone. It won't be appreciated.

"Talked to the teenagers, too," Dean says. He's leaning over the table, flipping through the newspapers, wolfing down the Doritos Sam handed him. Which meant, of course, _I'm sorry about before_ , but that's all bygones. Sometimes it drives Sam crazy, how much his brother takes in stride, and sometimes he's shamefully grateful for it.

"Anything weird?" Sam's thirsty; the ice-crystal milk will have to do.

"Nothin' much," says Dad. "They tried scooting around on the ice, singing and making a ruckus, before the girl got grabbed."

"Singing." Sam's brow furrows as he sits down, glass of milk in hand. "They started singing?"

"Yes, Sam." Dad is half-irritated, but he's not trying to shut Sam up, interested in wherever Sam's mind is going. That makes Sam a little bitter and a little smug, because it means Dad values him whether he wants to or not. _Suck it, Dad_. He does not say that out loud. Instead, he says, "It reminds me of Beowulf."

"Oh, crap on crackers, here we go." Dean groans and hurls himself onto the couch, which creaks threateningly.

"Can it, Dean." Dad leans forward. "What about Beowulf?"

"There was feasting in winter, and the sounds of revelry carried down to Grendel, under the lake. He attacked." Sam pauses, props his chin on his hand. "The winter timeline fits too—it's a more protective element, I guess, having ice. So…maybe this is some kind of Grendel-like thing. Monster with an under-lake lair, goes after partiers who stray into his lair. First time, some teenagers. Second time, some carolers. Same deal." He squints at the map. "And these ponds share a connection, you said?"

Dad nods. His approval, unlike his criticism, is almost always brief and wordless. "Hit the library after school tomorrow," he says. "See if you can find anything on Grendel-like legends."

"This," says Dean, "had better make me Beowulf."

...

Twenty-four hours later, Sam's bent over the best _Beowulf_ the Cooperstown library has to offer. Sam wouldn't admit it in his brother's hearing, but this is far more interesting than the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He thinks, _Tolkien should have done a translation_ , and flips to the annotations.

 _For more discussion of the Grendel legend…_ there's a few names of lore collectors. Sam gets on one of the chunky computers and starts searching the Web.

 _Believed to be a descendant of Cain…_ which Sam doesn't think is true, because Cain was pretty terrible, but presumably human _… sceadugenga—shadow walker, night goer. Ha._

A _sceadugenga_ was shrouded in darkness, and what better darkness than the firmament of murky waters? These creatures evolved, and sometimes the legend helped them do it. Sam wishes he could be sure that this was _the_ Grendel, because that would be one for the history books, but this is good enough.

He can't go back to Dad this empty-handed, though. Ganking, as Dean would say, is high on the list. Sam reads:

 _"Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike_

 _and welt on the hand of that heathen brute_

 _was like barbed steel. Everybody said_

 _there was no honed iron hard enough_

 _to pierce him through, no time proofed blade_

 _that could cut his brutal blood caked claw."_

 _Super. No blades._ There went the hockey stick idea.

Beowulf had to rip his freaking arm off. Sam wonders if they've got the juice.

It's enough to tell Dad, and Sam's on a tight schedule. He's got an hour, he figures, at least. He packs up his books, and heads for the bar on the edge of town.

...

It's not yet five o'clock, which means that nobody but sorry drunks are hanging out at the bar. Sam feels a little crappy about hustling them, but this is what he has to do. And he has to be fast about it, so he goes on youthful puppy-dog looks, basically playing a college-kid idiot—he's tall enough to pass for that—until he's collected a couple hundred.

Too soon, he has only fifteen minutes to get back to the library and meet Dean. _Damnit_. He might be late, if Dean's on time.

A hand claps down on his shoulder, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that Dean is more than on time.

"If you think you can sneak out and hustle _on your own_ at the only dive in this town," Dean hisses in his ear, "You got another thing coming, Samuel."

Sam wets his lips. Problem is, Dean was never supposed to know. How the hell Dean got here is another question, too. Probably has some sixth sense for where Sam goes, after all this time.

Sam's plan is blasphemy to Winchesters. He buttered up Dad so that he'd get sent on research-duty with none too many questions asked, then duck out and start saving up. Stanford, like all the other schools, doesn't waive the five-hundred-dollar deposit. A full scholarship, even if it's all Sam hoped for, doesn't cover anything.

But now he's trapped. The words _college fund_ are worse than any profanity they know, worse than any spell a witch could concoct. He can't make this out in any way that won't hurt Dean.

"I just wanted some spending money," he chokes out at last.

And that hurts Dean too. "Why didn't you just ask me, then?"

Sam shifts uncomfortably under the brief flash of pain in his brother's eyes. "I have to do something for myself every so often."

Dean shrugs, all sunshine and quick, hard edges again. "Yeah, sure. See that babe at the bar? I'm going to go see if she's lonely. It's still light out—you can walk home." Whatever he wanted to say, whatever Sam might have said, it's over.

Sam puts down the pool cue and pockets the cash. The roll of bills is a start, but his brother's squared shoulders feel like beginning of an end.

...

"Where's your brother?" Dad asks. Not _hey, Sam._ Not _how was school_ , though Sam hasn't expected that for years. Not _what did you find out?_ , which is what Sam actually expected.

"Uh…" Sam realizes he needs a lie, because Dad knew Dean was picking him up. "I found some good stuff at the library. And…Dean'll be back soon."

"Girl involved?" Dad asks, looking up from his paper, and Sam grimaces. He does _not_ want to discuss his brother's exploits with Dad.

"No idea. Probably."

"I'll have a word with him later." Dad turns another page.

 _Crap._ "No need," Sam hastens. "I mean, I think he might have just been—researching. Too. You know."

Dad looks up now, total disbelief written on his face. "Hmm. I'm sure. Alright, sit down. Tell me what you got."

Sam feels miserable, the wad of money in his pocket a guilty little secret, the discoveries of the library almost forgotten. He has to call it all back to mind, explain his theory to his father. Dad is intrigued. "Got to pull this sonuvabitch apart, huh?" He scratches his chin. "I'll call Bobby, see what he can add. Not bad, son."

It's almost praise. But it wouldn't be if Dad knew. Dean doesn't even really _know_ , and his eyes were already burning with betrayal.

Sam kicks himself all the way into the dismal bedroom, and sits on the lower bunk with his shoulders hunched so that he won't bang his head on the upper bunk.

 _Yeah, dork, that's the only thing you're banging_ , says Dean's voice in his head, and Sam all but scoffs in outrage. Then he feels a twinge, hard and sharp—if, no, _when_ he leaves, will Dean's voice come with him?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: There's some non-explicit het in this chapter.**

It's dark when Dean gets home, but he reasons that that's because it's January and not because it's terribly late. Doesn't mean Dad won't be pissed, doesn't mean Dean doesn't smell a bit like alcohol and smoke.

"The hell happened to you?" Dad growls, quick as clockwork, like he's been planning it. He probably has.

Dean is too tired to lie. And he isn't Sam. He only hides the things that don't matter. "Bar."

"Told you to pick up Sam."

Dean's not going to rat on Sam. Dean never rats on Sam, and the little bitch knows it. He feels gutted. Sam shooting pool with a hard edge to his gawky shoulders, practiced lines of deceit. Dean won't think it. Won't acknowledge the truth of it. But Sam's not winning pool tips to buy candy.

"I went to…he was pissed. Wanted to go home alone."

"He didn't seem pissed," Dad counters, clearly Not in the Mood, and he gets up and kicks his chair back, closes in on Dean. "You better straighten up. You think you can get drunk in the middle of the day, middle of a damn job? The hell are you doing, son?"

"I screwed up," Dean says, because he sort of did, and even if he didn't, it's still the best answer. "Won't happen again."

Dad jabs a finger into his sternum, hard enough to hurt. "I'll kick your ass if it does," he says grimly. "That's a promise."

Sam can probably hear all of this. Dean hasn't yet decided if he can bring himself to care. "Yes." Considers self-preservation, keeping whatever peace they won't have forever. "Sir."

Dad backs off, turns to the jacket that's draped over his chair. He fishes around in the pocket and brings out an envelope lumpy with cash. "Down the road—1328. Go pay the rent."

Dean takes it, turns.

"And Dean?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You're not taking the car." Dad gestures, some kind of condemnation in the turn of his hand, maybe. "Walk it off."

Dean only had one drink, but he doesn't argue.

He's twenty-two in three days, and he is nothing without external reference points, as Sam would say. If Sam sticks around to say anything much longer.

He cuts that thought off before it can fully form. He shrugs his shoulders against the cold. He walks.

...

The landlord's house is half a mile away, two stories. It's all gray slats and paint chipping like dry snakeskin, a tired-looking house for winter.

Dean knocks at the door, seeing glimmers of light within. A flick of a switch inside, a rattle of a lock undone—a woman answers the door.

She's slender and pretty, fragile features, brown eyes. She's dressed in a flimsy robe with a tangle of wet hair on her shoulder, like she just got out of the shower.

"Who are you?"

"Dean," he says, voice thick, because he's always most on the edge of interest when he's trying to forget his life. "Winchester. We're your, uh, new tenants?"

She surveys him, fingers twisting in her hair. Her feet are bare; he must be letting all the cold air in, so he shuts the door behind him and steps inside.

"My dad's new tenants," she says, after a pause. "He owns all the property."

"Oh. Here's the rent." He holds out the envelope. Where Dad got an envelope, he doesn't even know. Not like they send a lot of mail. Except for Sam. He's tried to be penpals with school friends over the years. It's never worked out.

She takes it, tucks it in the pocket of her robe. There's a beat of silence, and Dean wonders if all old houses feel so empty. Most of the ones he's known do, even when they're not.

"You stayin' in town long?"

"A bit."

She's eyeing him like she's hungry. It always makes him ache, to feel wanted, and he hates that ache so he usually just follows instead of seeing it for what it is.

"You're welcome to come around any time, Dean," she says, voice dropping an octave, a little husky, and he's an idiot for jumping into this three minutes in, but it's been a long day, a long life. He takes a step forward, and maybe it's not his fault afterwards, because she kisses him first.

She shudders under his hands, heart beating like a trapped bird under her ribs. Dean grazes his teeth along her lip, and he feels hot and cold all over when her fingers scrabble against the back of his neck.

He's thinking through it all, for some reason, can't shut his brain off, that this is not because he's really even looking for something, it's just a bunch of other crap he can't fathom, so it's better to lose himself in what he knows. The only thing he's so good at, apparently, that all he has to do is walk in a room.

A car growls outside. She stiffens in his arms, pushes him away. "Dammit," she says. Her cheeks are red. "That's my husband."

Dean swallows, steps back. Thinks how it serves him right, letting himself walk into this fantasy like there wasn't going to be a catch.

"Go out that door," she hisses, pointing through the kitchen, like Dean wasn't here for a perfectly good reason at first. He doesn't argue, figures she can explain away her swollen lips and heightened pulse to whoever walks through the door.

The walk home seems slower. If he were Sam, maybe he'd be more pissed. But if he were Sam, he wouldn't ever be where he is. He wouldn't be slinking home like a twice-beaten dog, the cold air weighing on his shoulders like poured concrete. He wouldn't—

Dad barely acknowledges him when he walks in, which is typical. But Dean can tell from the weaponry organized around him and the feverish notes he's scribbling down, they're probably striking out at the lake-creature tonight or soon thereafter.

There's a light on under the bedroom door. Dean knocks, not really knowing why he does so. Maybe he's just tired of hopscotching from one overblown crapshow to another.

"Come in," says Sam. He's studying for something, because he's Sam, and he keeps having to push his bangs out of his eyes.

"Hey," Dean says. He tries to keep the question out of his voice, and it's easier than he expected. Maybe he doesn't want to ask anything, anything at all.

"Where have you been?"

 _Screwing up, and it's your fault_ , Dean thinks, but he doesn't say it. "Around."

"Dad definitely thinks it's a sceadugenga."

"A what?"

"Shadow-walker. Dude, did you pay any attention to Bobby's Old English etymology? Or even German? They're pretty similar."

"Nerd." Dean sits down on the edge of the bunk, across from the chair Sam's folded himself up on. "Go on."

"So anyway, problem is, they're neither alive nor dead. This Grendel—I mean, probably not the same one as in _Beowulf_ , but still…he uses the mist and cover of bodies of water. Hides in darkness, except for gleaming eyes…" Sam waves a hand. "So anyway, as I said, neither living nor dead. Considering how Beowulf defeated Grendel—"

"Ripped his freaking arm off," Dean adds, with some satisfaction.

The corner of Sam's mouth lifts. "Yes. Dad thinks we need to pull this thing apart to destroy it. He picked up some heavy-duty chain at the local hardware store, and put some Anglo-Saxon spell on it that Bobby gave him."

"He's been busy," Dean says. He feels again the grit in his throat—what the hell was Dean doing, mulling over some made-up hurt? Screwing up, and it's no one's fault but his own.

"Yeah."

The little pause draws out between them, because a lot has happened in the past few hours, and the last time they spoke was barely civil. Dean is, not for the first time, painfully grateful for the hunt. "Skates gonna come in handy?"

Sam nods. "Actually, maybe. We're going to need to draw him out and agitate him. To do that—"

"We're gonna make a hockey puck of his freaky ass."

"I think we're going to be the hockey pucks," Sam says ruefully.

From the kitchen, Dad calls.

Sam tucks a few papers into his duffle, like he doesn't want Dean to see them. Dean mentally notes that he should investigate later, and then reminds himself—people feel safer when they don't know what's in the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'm sorry this took so long! I thought this would be five chapters, then six, and now it's probably going to be seven. This chapter is nice and long, at least. Enjoy. Hope the geography, choreography, etc., make sense.**

Dad isn't as ready as Sam wants him to be. There's nothing surprising about this, so Sam tucks his gloved fingers in his pockets, teeth chattering like an abacus, while Dad and Dean load the cast iron cable winch into the back of the Impala.

Dad's plan is to lure out the monster, tangle it in chains, and then pull. Sam thinks there are some holes in the plan, but this thing is starting to up the body count, and the Winchesters always do everything on a bit of a prayer.

Sam's prayer, at the moment, is that he lives through this so he can go to Stanford, but there's no point saying that out loud.

Night has fallen, inky-black and frosty. When they finally get on their way, with few words exchanged and the temperature still plummeting like a flyball in the outfield, they take the main drag. Route 28 or something. Then Dad veers off on a sharp left, hugging a cascade of planted pines. There's barely gravel on this road, and Sam says, "Where are we?"

"Old trolley line," Dad says tersely. "Swamps in this area wrecked it."

Beside them, out the slick gray of the Impala's back window, Sam sees a stream. It must be the one at the root of all this trouble, connecting ponds, letting the _sceadungenga_ pass under cover of dark and water from one lair to the next.

They'd dumped their skates into the trunk before they left. Sam thinks that Dean is chewing on something, hiding some hurt like a wary animal, but it isn't the time to suss it out. Never is.

There is a tiny peninsula of land that widens their path, and Dad pulls onto it, wheels whirring in the fine dust of snow. The peninsula pinches an inlet between two bodies of water, the snake-like creek continuing alongside the trolley line and one of the ponds, silent and bedsheet-flat under blankets of snow.

"Thought the ice was broken," Dean says.

"That's on the far shore of this one," says Dad. "This side's less visible, and less messy."

 _For now_ , Sam thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. He feels a sudden, familiar anger rising up in his stomach. What if this is the hunt that takes them out? He's got a letter that opens the door to Stanford and freedom in his duffel, but he'll be damned if he won't find a dozen near ways to die before he can get there.

The anger, at least, keeps him a little warmer. He flexes his fingers and wonders if he can convince Dean to take the gloves. Probably not.

"You boys need to follow that creek and hook around to the bank where it connects from the other side," Dad says. "That way you'll be close as can be to both ponds where this thing has been spotted. You can use the damn skates on the creek if they'll help—wind's blown some of the snow off the ice, but I doubt it's smooth." He's passing lengths of cable through his hands, measuring. "I'll signal with the flashlight when I'm ready. Then you're going to start singing."

Which is embarrassing, but Sam isn't going to protest, because he knows it's necessary.

"Seriously?" Dean sputters, momentarily mutinous, but he knows better than to defy Dad in the middle of an orders delivery and so he coughs and adds quickly, "Sorry."

"Thing's gonna be riled," says Dad. "That's what brings it out. Sounds of revelry." This is all Sam's research, and as usual, there's no credit given. Maybe, Sam reflects, he's childish to want Dad to drop a verbal footnote every time, but sometimes, it just seems like Dad absorbs Dean's brute strength and Sam's knowledge, sweeps it all for his greater purposes, and forgets that they had anything to do with it.

"Right," says Dean. "It's a party monster. Hope it likes Zeppelin."

"Whatever you do, stay off the pond until it breaks out," Dad orders. He hands their oldest duffel to Dean; it's weighted with something lumpy. "This is full of trash—hopefully heavy enough to fool the thing. When you've sung for a minute, sling it out as far as you can across the ice. We need this thing to come to us."

"And then?"

"Then you and Sam need to lead it back to me. These things come out when they're angry, far as I can tell. Getting fooled about prey? That will make it angry."

"Ah." Dean rubs his hands together against the cold, and even in the dark Sam can tell form the tilt of his chin that he's got his patented ready-for-battle face on. "That's where the skates come in."

Sam stomachs that, swallowing it down like something with a bad taste. Dad's best plan is to provoke an age-old swamp creature and have it chase his sons down so that he can tangle it in some dubiously blessed chains and what, hogtie it to death? He opens his mouth to protest but Dean's hand clamps down on his shoulder like Dean already knows what's coming.

"We've got it. Right, Sam?"

"Right," Sam spits, through gritted teeth. If this is how Dad wants them to die, Sam can't exactly let Dean do it alone.

Dad nods. "You boys be careful," he says, like that's probable or even possible. "I'd say you should run back on land but…this thing needs to think it's got a chance at you, else it'll just head back under. Take these cables. If you're in a pinch, I've blessed them too, and you may need to pull each other out if the ice—"

"Breaks? Great." Sam can infuse words with sarcasm; it's kind of a family talent.

"You got a better idea, Sam?"

Sam is dangerously close to saying, _now you want a good idea?_ but Dean steps on his foot first.

"Let's get moving," Dad says. "Moon's coming up, we don't want too much light to scare this thing off."

If Dean lived a couple more days, Sam thinks, he'd be twenty-two. And Sam's closing in on eighteen. Both full-grown, or near to it, and Dad trusts them. That's what this means, that's why Dad's always winding out another tightrope in front of them. He trusts them not to slip and fall and die like the kids who'd skidded out over deep waters, a few nights before.

Winchesters are always different.

Sam knows that to his bones.

So now, he follows Dean along the creek, through the stiff-frozen branches of low shrubs, prickle bushes that clasp twigs like hands over the narrow bed.

"Don't poke your eye out, squirt," Dean murmurs.

Squirt. Sam scoffs silently at that, because Sam is now taller than Dean, as everyone _but_ Dean freely admits.

They've got the skates slung over their shoulders and the cable lengths at their belts. You can't skate on the polished ribbing of a frozen creek, but it's easy enough to slip. Sam hopes the soles of his shoes aren't too bald from age, and finds his footing carefully.

It's a longish trek. The creek snakes on the other side of the old trolley line, feeding into the ponds from various inlets, but it won't open up to a true bank for a ways yet. Sam puffs steam into the air and wonders if the _sceadungenga_ knows that they are coming. Snatches of lines from his earlier reading are flooding his mind, the same mind he's thanked a dozen times for casting back spelling-bee words and SAT problems and dates for history and for Dad's research. That same mind is no comfort now.

 _Grendel then went to visit and see when night came—_

 _The high house, how it, the Ring Danes_

 _After the beer-feast, had occupied_

 _He found then therein the nobles' company_

 _Slumbering after the feast; they did not know sorrow, misery of men_

 _That damned creature, grim and greedy, soon was ready_

 _Savage and cruel—and from their rest seized thirty thanes;_

 _Thence back he went proud in plunder to his home,_

 _Faring with the banquet of bodies to seek his shelter…_

Thirty thanes. Three Winchesters. Even if this _sceadungenga_ is far from its fabled ancestor, Sam thinks, the Winchesters are out of their depths by venturing into _these_ depths.

"Hey," Dean says, breaking Sam from his thoughts. He pushes a handful of branches out of their way but stops in Sam's path. Dean looks pale at night.

"What?" Sam asks.

"What's eating you?"

"Nothing. Yet."

Dean's jaw twitches. "I wasn't gonna ask," he says, and Sam thinks that he sounds unhappy, but also like he always does—does this mean Dean is always unhappy? (He doesn't want to go there). "But…are you, like…is something going on?"

The Stanford letter was printed on thick cream paper. Pastor Jim had described it to him. Sam imagines it thicker than the paper of a dollar bill, the kind of paper that had a sound when you shook it. Sam clears his throat. "Dude, you really want to have a heart-to-heart _here_ _and_ _now_? You of all people?" Which is unfair, but they're Winchesters. Hunts are what they hide behind. Sam hopes this doesn't make him like Dad.

Dean shies away, like he always does when he's on thin ice, metaphorically (currently, literally), and someone shuts him down. "Forget it."

They keep moving in silence. Sam can see the dark, hulking shoulders of low hills, some shrouded in the marching chevrons of fir plantations, some bare of trees and covered with matted grass. This is farm country. It seems strange, as it always seems strange, that monsters lurk here.

They reach the mouth of the creek at last. The banks flank back and there is a cool, broad expanse of ice before them as it connects to the second pond. Dad was right; most of the snow has been swept off by winter winds. Sam strains his eyes—in the faint moonlight, he can only imagine the ruptured edges on the far side of this body of water (near a more-traveled road) where the carolers met their fate. The two ponds meet by a narrow branch of the creek that tunnels under the trolley line. At the crook of that line, a long way back back, Dad is waiting with the car, on the bank of the pond they've paralleled this whole time. If you could see it from the sky, Sam supposes, it would look rather like a figure eight with the thread of the creek tracing one side. Him and Dean at the meeting of the two halves; Dad at the top. Hopefully the creature is in one or the other.

Then again, it's a strange thing to be hoping for.

Dean shoulders off the duffel, making sure they have a clear point of access to the ice. He motions to Sam to put on his skates, and Sam does, digging the blades into the snow so that he can stand upright. His shoes go in the backpack he's strapped on. No point in wasting shoes.

Dean stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and squints across the length until he sees what Sam is watching for, too: the shuttering yellow eye of Dad's flashlight.

"Sing," Dean orders gruffly. He's embarrassed. Dean does not sing on command. He sings to annoy Sam, or when he feels like it—in the car, in the shower. But singing to lure out a monster is probably more like being on the wrong end of siren-hood for Dean's taste.

"You start," Sam insists stubbornly.

They're a bit hoarse, in the cold. And it feels stupid and off-key and strangely vulnerable, making a hullaballoo on a hunt when they've spent years training to be silent.

Dean starts with _You Shook Me All Night Long_. Sam hates himself for knowing the words. Then they go for _Achilles' Last Stand_ , but there's so many guitar riffs it's kind of hard to sing acapella. Sam would point this out, but he knows better than to say the word _acapella_ in front of Dean.

Halfway through _Livin' on a Prayer_ , Dean slings the duffle out across the ice. It skids for twenty feet or so.

Sam's voice falters. He can't help it. The suspense is cloyingly thick, even in thin, frigid air.

Dean elbows him. "Keep singing," he hisses, and Sam picks up again, thanking whatever stars bother being lucky that there is no one to hear them in this macabre freak-show performance.

The duffle huddles on the ice like a crouching hunchback. Everything is perfectly still, and the only sound is the butchered lyrics of Bon Jovi.

Then the ice cracks like a bullet.

Sam's seen plenty of nasty, creepy crap in seventeen years. But he's always hated things that live under the water, things that hide in murky depths and grab upwards. Maybe it's because Dean let him watch _Jaws_ in a motel in Indiana when he was six and he cried for half a night. Dean had it worse than Sam, then, because not only did he have deal with a royal ass-kicking from Dad, he also had to put up with a whimpery Sam for about a month. Sam's been working on tamping down any and all fears for a while now, hardening himself into the kind of man who can raise a chin against Dad, against anything, and as long as they keep out of the way of sharks and clowns, he thinks he's doing pretty well.

This, though. This is uncomfortably close.

Because the ice doesn't just break. It _is broken_ , and there are _fingers_ , crooked at joints that span six inches from knuckle to knuckle. Sinewy hands, clawed hands, barely hands at all. They grasp the duffel and pull it under.

Dean's hand closes on Sam's shoulder, and it's all Sam can do to repress the startled yelp that rises in his throat. "Run," Dean says. "We've got to get on the ice."

Which, holy mother of crap, that's the last thing Sam wants to do. He puts his head down and jump-runs awkwardly back down the line, teetering on his skates. He forces himself to make for the ice, and skims out.

Here's goddamn hoping that the thing can't swim faster than they can skate.

Dean is quick on his heels, and they're off. It feels like flying, but not the soaring—all Sam can think of is plummeting, ankles dragged downwards.

"Keep going," Dean commands, and swings around so that he's going backwards. He's got his gun in his hand. He fires a few bullets back into the patchy ice where the _thing_ broke through, to distract or provoke it, Sam has no idea.

It doesn't really matter. They hear a roar, and more ice breaking, and the hands reappear to grip the fractured edges of the hole.

In the myths, Grendel used to be a man. He was a son of Cain, cursed to wander in darkness. Sam can't help looking over his shoulder, and even though he's painfully relieved that the thing's chosen to chase them topside, he can't be relieved about much else.

There's very little man left about the _sceadungenga_ , if there ever was much to begin with.

The head is large and almost apelike, but there is a fanged snout that seems to Sam more like a vicious bull or boar. Its shoulders begin without much pretense of a neck, and its limbs are long and swift, for running or swimming, both hands and feet enormous and clawed.

"Hurry the hell up, Sam," Dean huffs, and fires off another shot.

They're making good time, but the creature lets out another bellow and breaks into a run. It shakes the ice at first but then it drops to a low-hanging gallop, spreading its weight more evenly, and it is almost silent.

The snow is drifting here. The wind hasn't been evenhanded, because nothing ever is. Sam stumbles, catches himself, skims forward again. Skating _is_ second nature, almost, when the alternative is death.

"Sam!" Dean shouts, beside him, Dean, who's graceful at anything and everything. "Faster!'

It's like the words remind Sam of how clumsy, how colt-like he is.

He wipes out.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Reiterated warning for language, violence, and a fleeting reference to an inappropriate relationship.**

He's spooked Sam. Sam's not like him and Dad, not someone who drives harder and harder under repeated orders. Sam's got so much going on in that damn shaggy head of his that he just shouldn't _think_ when he's hunting, should let his natural instincts take over for him.

Sam could be a great hunter if he just follows his instincts, follows his Winchester DNA and his iron will. Sam could—but Sam can only do anything if Dean does what he should do, _keep Sam safe_ , and Dean failed at that when he opened his mouth. Dean's gone and effed it up, calling out to him, reminding Sam that he's a lanky teenager with something hellish on his heels.

The thing—claws and ropy dripping limbs and a death's head mask—is gaining on them. It's reaching for Sam's sprawling legs when Dean drags him to his feet.

"Jesus, Sam. _Come on!_ "

When they were kids—well, Sam would still be a kid by most counts, just not by John Winchester's—Dean used to pull Sam along by the wrist, fingers locked round it because holding Sam's hand gave Sam too much room to wriggle out of Dean's grasp. So Dean just falls back to muscle memory, wraps his hand around Sam's wrist, and pulls.

That's the thing about ice. It gives you some kind of reckless freedom. He manages to spin Sam out ahead of him, and Sam gives a startled yelp but then he lowers his head and puts his giraffe legs to use, splicing his course with sidestrokes.

Someday, if they live, Dean's gonna find a place and time where he won't have to think about what death feels like when it breathes down his neck.

They're so close, but the thing is closer. Dean hears Dad bellow, hears the scratch and whistling jangle of chain flying through the air. It hits the thing in the maw, as Dean drops to his knees and slides towards the bank.

Grendel roars.

Dean scrambles to his feet. He's got ice-burn, if that's even a thing, on his palms. He totters in the skates and gets up on the bank where he can dig them into the snow, find some purchase. Sam's beside him. Dad wielding one end of the chain like a lasso. The other end is wrapped around the winch, anchoring it.

The thing isn't cowed, though. The chains burn it, it seems, but it flings them off and goes for Dad. Dean goes for his gun like some people go for prayers, fast and blind and desperate. He pops off a few rounds. They hit that shaggy, sludge-drenched hide and don't exactly bounce off, but they're not exactly slowing it down.

Grendel gets Dad by the throat.

Dean feels the shout leave his throat like an exorcised spirit. He dashes forward, so fast that he's caught in that space between balance and falling, but even in the blur he's aware that Sam is beside him.

That's the thing about Dean, see. He always knows where Sammy is.

Dad's choking. It's dark, nothing but moonlight and shadows, yet Dean can see that Dad's eyes are wide. Humans panic when they're being choked. Can't help it. And it's so wrong, so terrifying to see Dad like that. Dean grabs the slack length of chain between Dad and the winch and pulls it forward to loop around one clawed and terrible foot.

He meets the creature's eyes.

Maybe it's Grendel. Maybe it's not. Likely not, because, like Sam said, Grendel is a tangle of myth and Old English. This is the real thing, but its eyes are wild and gleaming. In the split second he has, Dean finds himself wondering why it comes up from underwater to drag down people who sing, of all things. Why. There's no answer in the lidless, slit-pupiled gaze.

With one bizarrely long hand still wrapped around Dad's throat, the other swipes out at Dean. The claws are yellow-gray and have ice crystals and grime clinging to them. Dean ducks, jerks with the chain, brings the thing down to its knotted knees.

Dad kicks out, breaks free. He and Dean split the chain between them, twisting and pulling, but this isn't even a trap at best. This is a losing fight. Dean knows it.

And Sam? Sam's just hanging back. Only one end of chain, more than two can't do much with it.

Beneath their feet, the ice shifts.

"Dean, get the neck!" Dad shouts. That's their best chance with the chain. But the creature's fingers are too long, twisted like branches, cruel at the tips. The chain may scorch it, draw out bellows and whines, but it can fend them off, it's on its feet again, and one of these times, Dean's gonna get a hook in the stomach.

"Neck!" He hears Dad's voice nearby again, and hell, can't Dad see that he's trying? Does Dad _ever_ see that he's trying?

Dean launches himself up, manages to get the loop in his hands around the creature's bull-neck, and pulls.

And sure enough, Grendel crashes hard.

So does the ice.

Dean hears Sam's voice, high on whatever wind there is, crying out his name. All Dean can feel and think is pure panic, because the chain is in his hands and Dad has thrown himself backwards onto an unbroken slab, but Dean is going under. The kiss of cold water is sudden and sharp and cruel. No doubt those poor dead carolers felt the same, and the teenage girl who met her fate first. No doubt they felt that terror, in its completest form, that last wrinkle of a heartbeat before the flatline.

There's nothing like falling, for fear. Dean's supposed to be twenty-two in a couple days, but Dean is drowning.

He opens his eyes. The water's full of all sorts of crap, probably, but he's not thinking of that, because he's drowning. It's all black, black like ink and the blood of unholy things, black like water should never be but is, and the creature's eyes glow green. They're too round to be anything approximating human—now or ever. Dean doesn't know, can't even guess how this thing got to be here, how much older it must be than the bullets and chains they tried to take it with, so old that it stays down in the dark places where no light gets in.

Dean tries to pull the chain tighter but you can't do much when you're drowning.

He knows to hold his breath—he was trained by John Winchester, dammit—but the creature has teeth and _God almighty_ , those _eyes_ —

Dean starts blacking out, he's holding his breath so long. The weight on his lungs feels like the chains managed to tangle its way around him, boa constrictor tight. Dying is the most human thing you can do, and the last human thing you do.

Dean wonders if there's a heaven. He's not much the believing kind. If there is a heaven, then Mom must be there. But really, would he belong? Him, royal screw-up Dean Winchester, who was macking on a married woman just this evening because he got his feelings hurt? Dean Winchester, who got drunk at fourteen and who once screwed his thirty-five year old teacher so she'd give him a passing grade, Dean Winchester, who swears like a sailor and prays like a little kid when he prays at all…he doesn't belong in heaven, barely belongs here. Barely belongs anywhere.

He's drowning. John's boy, Sam's brother. He's the in-between, the intermediary, the painfully average. He is used-up potential, and he's dying a hunter's death.

The creature's eyes swallow up his vision. He feels a sharp, biting pain his chest, and that's when he gives in and opens his mouth for one silent, gurgling scream. The creature's going for his heart with those jagged fire-poker claws.

Dean fights back, but dying—it takes all the fight from you. Death takes no prisoners, right?

But suddenly everything goes rigid, and blacker, somehow, and then the moonlight is bright and cold on his face. He's above water, and he's being flung to the side, skimming on his back over ice, arms and legs useless, sprawling as a broken doll.

 _Back in Black_ is blaring in his ears.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: That's all, folks!**

There's always dreadful stories, the worst fairytales and even sometimes stories in the Bible or history books, where someone has to choose between two people they love. Where someone is going to die if someone else is going to live. A choice has to be made and Sam always thinks, he's Dad's _son_ , so he should probably pick Dad, but when it comes down to it, really, Sam thinks he'd have to pick Dean.

And then he feels guilty, 'cause Dean would hate him for that, would probably pummel him to the ground and say something that, underneath the shouting, really sounds like, _you don't ever pick me, Sam, you never pick me._

Dean would want Sam to let him die.

At least, one part of Dean would. The part that clicks its heels for Dad and cocks guns with a sneer and a hard-eyed soldier's stare. That Dean chooses death as the only way to glory, every time.

But that's not Sam's Dean.

And Sam's Dean doesn't want to die.

For half of half a second, Sam is stock-still on the ice, too still to even wobble on his skate blades. Dad is crawling to the safety of the unbroken plane, and the water is splashing and gurgling like a living thing. But Dean and the _sceadugenga_ have vanished, just after Dean swung the chain around the creature's neck.

Sam shouldn't blame Dad for getting to safety—it wouldn't benefit anyone to dive into those murky depths. But Sam blames Dad, he always does, he's so angry and so afraid that he stays still, and then he springs into action. Because someone has to save Dean. Someone has to _think_ , and Sam may not want to be the one to out-shoot and out-punch the rest of his family, but he's always wanted to be able to out-think everyone.

 _Bore it bitterly, he who bided in darkness,_

 _That light-hearted laughter loud in the building_

 _Greeted him daily; there was dulcet harp-music,_

 _Clear song of the singer._

 _He is angry,_ Sam realizes suddenly. _The music drives him mad._

And suddenly, he knows what he must do.

He doesn't think much of the ice. Doesn't think of the chill in the air, or Dean, desperate for air. He can't. He races for the Impala, jerks open the familiar weight of the door, fumbles for the keys. They're in the ignition, they're always in the ignition. Dad likes to make a quick getaway.

Sam forces the engine to life, shaking with adrenaline and the rush and rumble of the car's roar. He switches on the headlights, full blaze, and grabs the first tape he can find.

AC/DC howls over the speakers.

 _God,_ Sam prays, because Sam believes, Sam has to believe, _don't let him die._

One awful moment passes. Then Dean comes flying out over the ice, and the monster follows. It crawls and writhes with rage. Sam watches as it stumbles to its feet. It seeks footing on the broken ice. It seeks _him._ Sam locks the doors of the Impala, like that's going to do anything.

In the shine of the headlights, he sees that Dad is on his feet. Dean is still unmoving, though, and Sam feels his throat clench.

The _sceadugenga_ , arms swinging at its foul sides, has left the ice. Its eyes gleam like green fire. It's never seen a car before, Sam guesses. Doesn't know that it's the boy inside it needs to kill to make the sounds of revelry end.

Doesn't know _yet._

It looms over the front hood, and Sam waits only one more second before he floors the gas. All seven feet or so of the _sceadugenga_ fall beneath the sleek black nose of the Impala.

Sam is trembling in the front seat, hands on the wheel. He's known how to drive since he was thirteen years old, but he almost never takes the helm. It's all of theirs, to be sure, but it isn't Sam's like it is Dad's or Dean's. Still, he knows it's his job to save them.

There is the screech and groan of metal, and Sam feels himself being lifted. Heavy as these tons of steel are, they won't be enough to keep a primordial being down.

A figure dashes in front of him. It's Dad. He has the blessed chain in hand. And he's down in front of the Impala's hood. There is a moment's choking, gargling—and then a tearing sound.

The Impala settles, knocking Sam's teeth together.

Dad raises Grendel's head for Sam to see, because it's Dad, he does that kind of thing. And Sam finds himself thinking, stupidly, _Beowulf only took Grendel's arm._

Then he thinks, _Dean._

The fight is over but sometimes what's worse is what comes after.

Sam feels his heart dropping like mercury in cold weather, cold like it is now. He is so weary, bone-weary, the kind of slump and tremors that only come with awful fears. His wits saved the day. But maybe it wasn't enough to save Dean.

Dean is still and pale on the ice. His legs and arms look tangled. Sam will check for breaks, but first he has to check for breathing. Sam tugs off his gloves, reaches to pump Dean's chest with air. The rough ice bites through the threadbare knees of his jeans as he kneels at Dean's side, and his hands come away sticky with Dean's blood.

" _Dean,_ " Sam says desperately. Somewhere behind him Dad has thrown aside the monster's head, is meticulously tearing the thing limb from limb. Dad always finishes the job.

Sam doesn't give a damn about the job.

He presses harder, and the pain brings Dean back. Dean, after all, always responds to pain.

"Sam? You—"

"We killed it." Because someone had to, and all Sam's life, _someone_ has meant them. The Winchesters three, the mighty thanes and their dark steed. And Sam hates it. Hates that it ends like this, always, with someone bruised and bloody. Hates that Death nips at their heels like a brace of hungry hounds. Death, the hound to whom they throw bones of danger, and someday, their own bones.

The letter from Stanford is waiting at Pastor Jim's. Someday, Sam is going to leave. Someday, Dean is going to die.

And who the hell knows which comes first.

"Good," Dean says. And he leans back, and he smiles. He smiles for Sam, maybe. But it doesn't do any good. Sam is shrugging off his jacket and trying to press it against Dean's chest, trying to wrap him in it because Dean's shirt is stiff and freezing. Dean's going to die of frostbite if he doesn't die from a monster tearing at his heart.

"Dude," Dean says, really gently, far too gently for someone with blood bubbling through his shredded coat, "Dude, stop crying. The snot's gonna freeze on your face."

Sam runs his hands over his eyes, still shakily. He hadn't realized he was crying. Now he's probably smeared blood over his cheeks. He's almost eighteen, goddammit. Eighteen, and he's cried twice in the past day, for very different reasons.

"I just—" and in that moment, he comes closer to telling Dean about Stanford, about his plans, than he has yet. Here they are on the ice, while Dad cuts up the monster, and Dean bleeds dark and steady on the snow—and Sam wants to spill _his_ guts, wants to tell his brother that he's going to betray them.

Dean coughs wetly and grimaces in pain. That's all it takes for Sam to snap to (better than he does when Dad orders him) and help his brother up. "You can walk?"

"Yeah. Just—shaky." The last word is bitten off, like Dean's embarrassed. "It got the jump on me, Sammy." As though he's to blame.

"You weakened it," Sam says. "It's over, now."

He says that even though it never really is.

Dean leans on him. Dean's always at his most open and readable when he's hurt, like the injuries that slice him to the bone also slice him to the soul. He has one arm heavy around Sam's neck, leaning on him. They used to move like that when Sam was shorter. It's different now, and yet not.

"Almost there," Sam murmurs. Dad's finishing up. Sam can see the grisly details in the Impala's lights, lights that gleam like eyes.

"Sam," Dean whispers, voice thick, "Are you gonna leave me?"

He was so ready to tell him, a minute ago. But he finds, now, that he can't. There are things that slice you to the bone and there are things that break you. And Sam just—"No," Sam says, digging his fingers into Dean jacket, feeling Dean's blood slick and warm against his cold skin, "No, I'm never going to leave you."

Dean stops short and tilts his head to look at Sam. Maybe it's because he's in pain, but suddenly, there are tears in Dean's eyes too. " _Sammy_ ," he says, and he doesn't add anything more, because they both already know that Sam is lying.

"Dad's coming," Sam says. "We've got you."

And the words taste bitter in his mouth.

Dean spends most of the next few days laid up on the couch. He's cold and feverish at first. They have to pile every blanket in the house on him, and Dad changes the bandages on his chest every day. Dean won't be able to be back to his full strength for a while, but he's young. They're both so young, Sam thinks. They always get better.

After a bit, Dean complains and bitches a bit, and even though it's still early he manages a grin when Sam brings him a stack of _Sports Illustrated_ for his birthday.

"No swimsuit issue?"

"While I'm keeping you company? No thanks."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Prude."

Sam cocks an eyebrow. "Realist."

When he's not fussing over Dean—though he won't admit that it's fussing—Sam helps Dad load up the Impala. They're heading out. Only rented for a couple weeks.

Sam won't miss Fly Creek, with its treacherous waters. But he guesses he wouldn't mind going somewhere they could skate, somewhere that has pine stands that wave like proud banners in the wind.

Dad makes him drop the skates in the Goodwill box, though, the day they head out.

"We're going to South Carolina," Dad says, with a shrug, like none of this will matter a day from now. "You won't need them there."

Sam bites down on a retort and only curls his lip when Dad turns away.

When they head out, Sam takes the front seat so Dean can stretch out in the back. They haven't talked about the money Sam got at the bar, the afternoon of the hunt. They certainly haven't talked about that shiny cream-colored envelope at Pastor Jim's.

They're Winchesters. They don't really talk about anything.

The chain, Dad coiled and tucked in a corner of the trunk. Might come in handy, he said, though Sam was disgusted by the green slime still clinging to the links.

The guns, they cleaned and stowed away. Dean, they patched up.

It's a hunter's life, and Sam hates it as much as he knows it. He knows it well. It is, after all, all he's ever known.

There are snatches of Beowulf in his head. There is Metallica on the speaker.

There are the voices of his father, his brother, and the voices in his head.

He shuts it all out and leans against the cool windowpane, forcing himself to sleep. He does not want to think of any of these things.

Because Sam is going to California, and he tells himself he will not need them there.


End file.
